During the summer afternoons in the sleepy village of Mau, life slows down. Unbearable heat rises up in waves, enveloping all. Hot humid air from which only the homes protected by dripping jute provide protection. The sun beats down merciless and unyielding on the vast, arid, flat plains. Humanity retires from work, seeking respite in the intoxication of sleep. So it has been for centuries. So it was on that dusty afternoon.

Prasad lay under the dense banyan tree, half reclining,half sitting. Beside him lay a steel tumbler and an earthen pot containing the only kind of cool water known to him. In a distance only a restless crow cawed restlessly. As Prasad was slipping away in blessed drowsiness, the hot air wafted a heavy smell towards him. Dense and rotten. He cursed at this extra hand of work, conjecturing that he would probably have to dispose of a dead rodent. Usually, the hawks found in the vicinity would have done it for him, only his field was thick with unripened grain. Walking on for a few feet, he sighted something far larger than a rodent. Reaching the corpse, he surveyed it disinterestedly.

Footer

"I am the song that rises from a thousand souls.I am the unknown breeze that caresses your cheek on a humid evening. I am the stranger who smiles at you in passing leaving you happier than you were, moments before.I am full of happiness like a rising sun, I bathe all who stand around me in the glow of my happiness and you make me happy, just by being you. I am the strings of a guitar and the beat of a drum, I am the glint in a lovers eye, I am the smile tugging at the corner of your mouth.I am the bird flying high above and I am all the fish in the ocean....

I am the butterfly the little children laugh in pleasure at...I am the cry of a starving child, I am the deep sadness in the eyes of the poor, the homeless and the forgotten...whom I remember...."

We, The People.

"WE ARE THE MUSIC MAKERS, AND WE ARE THE DREAMERS OF THE DREAM. WANDERING BY LONE SEA BREAKERS, AND SITTING BY DESOLATE STREAMS. WORLD LOSERS AND WORLD FORSAKERS, FOR WHOM THE PALE MOON GLEAMS. YET WE ARE MOVERS AND THE SHAKERS OF THE WORLD FOREVER IT SEEMS.”